AFTER
viewing Abu Abraham's cartoons at the India Habitat Centre's Palm Court,
I went towards the auditorium which was screening two films, one film
made by Abu himself and the other one made on him by Sudhir Tailang. And
this screening was followed by Tailang inviting Abu's second wife Psyche
and daughters Ayisha and Janaki ( born from his first marriage) to the
stage. Perhaps, they were expected to give those elaborate speeches or
not-so-elaborate ones but all that Psyche could so very gently say was
just this one-liner: "Abu was such a wonderful person to live
with..." With that her voice got laden with emotion and tears
rolled out With those words Abu Abraham rose, spread out much beyond
being just a cartoonist. For a man to be described a wonderful man in
the actual sense is rare in today's times.

While talking to Psyche
for this interview, one almost feels envious of her relationship with
Abu. For, from whatever she spoke it seemed one of those blissful
relationships: "For me, it was the third marriage and for him the
second but we had been friends for a long span. I met him on New Delhi's
social circuit when I was working here as secretary to various Arab
ambassadors and he was working as a cartoonist. It was around 1980 that
we decided to marry. What was special about him was that he always had
time for me, no matter how very busy he was. He was never pompous, he
never raised his voice and was extremely gentle and loving, he had a
great sense of humour. Maybe our intellectual levels didn't really match
but he never made me feel so. On the contrary, he took so much of
interest in every little thing I did and took me to far-flung places
which he had visited before our marriage and was keen that I see them.
It was so wonderful, all those years with him . ."

Perhaps, to fill that void after Abu died
rather too suddenly, last December ( December 1, 2002), Psyche took to
arranging this exhibition/travelling retrospective, as she says:
"Both Abu and I didn't believe in religion, we were atheists, so
instead of holding religious ceremonies, I thought its best to arrange
this exhibition which will travel from here to Kerala and open there on
December1, the day Abu passed away ." In fact, helping her put up
this impressive exhibition are Abu's daughters from his first marriage,
to Sarojini, who was also to be spotted in the audience, coming all the
way from Bangalore. When I asked Sarojini why did she travel down all
the way from Bangalore all that she quietly said was "I'm here for
the sake of my daughters. I don't want to comment further."

Remembering Abu

That evening there were
others who wanted to comment. Tailang, of course, who went down
nostalgia lane and recounted his 25-year-long association with Abu.
"The first time I'd met him was when I was in college in Bikaner
and then later visited his office at the Indian Express. In fact,
when I visited his office he wasn't there so after waiting for several
minutes, I left a note for him together with some of my drawings and
returned to Bikaner. Much to my surprise, after few days I received a
letter from him and in it he had written that I should see him, together
with that a footnote complimenting me on my writing." Needless to
add that the relationship grew between the two and Tailang's deep
admiration and respect for Abu was more than writ large in this
film.Titled Abu,The Philosopher—it revolves around the twists
and turns in Abu Abraham's life.

He started off as Abraham
and its only later that the word /name "Abu" got added. As he
writes in his reminiscences: "In April 1956, something happened
which changed my life radically. Michael Foot had published two of my
political cartoons in his weekly journal, Tribune ( founded by
Aneurin Bevan ). Two days after the second cartoon appeared, I had a
letter from David Astor, editor of the Observer, which simply
said: "I am very much interested in the work you have been doing
and I would like to know if you could care to do some drawings for the Observer."
As suggested in the letter, I phoned Astor's secretary and went to
see him two days later. To my astonishment, I found that Astor had made
up his mind to take me on his staff...My first cartoon was produced in
the first week of April,1956. I had signed it Abraham as I had done for
about ten years. .. David Astor, after approving the cartoon said: Can't
you find a pseudonym? He explained, saying that any Abraham in Europe
would be taken as a Jew and all my cartoons would take on a slant for no
reason, and I wasn't even Jewish. What was more, the Middle-East was
beginning to boil at that time with Nasser dominating the scene. I
thought up the pseudonym, Abu "Perfect," Astor said, suitably
mysterious. Thus was I re-christened on that morning, Friday, April 6,
1956." In fact, going through his reminiscences what strikes one is
Abu's straight and direct attitude. He writes as though he was
conversing with you: "An interesting and challenging period in my
more than fifty-year career span in journalism was the fifteen and a
half years I spent in London. After two years, as a cartoonist and
occasional writer with Shankar's Weekly, the itch to go abroad
became over-powering. It would be marvellous, I thought, if I could get
together enough money to visit the major cities of Europe and see the
galleries and meet artists and cartoonists. Some time in January or
February of 1953, a British cartoonist Fred Joss who was on the staff of
the Star, a London evening paper belonging to the News
Chronicle group, was on a sketching trip to India and he happened to
drop in at Shankar's Weekly to see Shankar. As he was about to
leave he passed by the room where Kutty, Samuel, Prakash and I worked
and came in to meet us. A lively and informal extrovert,Joss, an
Austrian Jew by origin, took a keen interest in what we were doing. He
looked at some of our work and then seeing a drawing of mine that had
appeared in the latest issue of Shankar's Weekly remarked, this
stuff would sell in London and sounded as though he meant it. That was
enough for me. When Joss got back to London he wrote to me a two-line
letter, simply asking: When are you coming? In the last week of July
1953, I set sail for England .." In fact , I must add here that Abu
Abraham is perhaps the only Indian cartoonist who has had the
distinction of working for The Observer for 10 years ( 1956-66)
and thereafter with The Guardian for three years ( 1966- 69) .The
epilogue to his reminiscences lies fitted with more details: "By
then British politics had begun to bore him and he thought of returning
to India. He was offered a job as political cartoonist with The
Indian Express in Delhi and he returned with his wife Sarojini, whom
he had married in 1962, and their two daughters, Ayisha and Janaki. Abu
was nominated as member of the Rajya Sabha ( 1972-78 ). In 1981, he left
The Express and began to syndicate his work to half a dozen
newspapers. That year he also started his strip cartoon, Salt and
Pepper, which ran for nearly 20 years in various publications. Abu
authored several books. He also edited a collection of cartoons from all
over the world on the Vietnam war and a collection of cartoons by Indian
cartoonists—the Penguin Book of Indian cartoons. He was given a
special award by the British Film Institute for his animated cartoon
film , No Arks ...Abu returned to his home state Kerala, in 1988
with his second wife Psyche, where he continued to draw and write until
his death on December 1, 2002 " In fact, Tailang's film captures
the different aspects of Abu's life with a lot of footage on the last
few years—the years Abu and his second wife Psyche spent in their
home, "Saranam", in Trivandum.

All through this
documentary, Abu speaks as though from his heart, on the various aspects
but one particular line from him hits: "You have to assert your
freedom, nobody gives it on a platter!" And interspersed, lie
captured shots and sentences of some eminent men like Khushwant Singh,
Mario Miranda, Shanto Dutta—giving their views on Abu Abraham the
cartoonist and the man.

Like his cartoons, Abu too
comes across as uncomplicated and direct. A man perhaps possessed with
simple thinking and that probably explains why his cartoons are blessed
with simple no-fuss lines, with a subtle sense of humour and
provocation. Another aspect about his cartoons is that they seem ageless—the
ones he drew during the Emergency hold out and hit you even now. So
whilst he 's been laid to rest, his cartoons are there to go on go on
provoking you to think on.